This morning, I am drawn,
My boots wet with due,
To a familiar haunt.
At the foot of the field
The arching limb of a guardian oak
Beckons me to the brook’s meander.
I stand upon a tiny beach of mud.
Notice the story told in the imprint of a deer’s hoof
Three days old.
The water’s endless chatter as it moves over a mess of rocks
Punctuates the quiet of the hour.
Busy insects skitter in the strengthening sun
Gathering and gathering.
Across the far bank a ranked army of tall nettles glare confidently
Daring me to cross.
At bottom of the brook’s clear water
Lie black magnetic stones.
They pull me to pick them from their place
Feel their cold smoothness in the warmth of my palm.
I choose one, lift it to my face, to examine.
On its underside, a small white invertebrate moves towards my fingers.
It pulsates an alien dance.
Unnerving in its otherness. Nothing about it is familiar.
It travels by alternating between thin and broad, long and short.
Three white clouds move within its body’s length
The distance between them expanding and contracting
An embodied square dance.
So, it squirms its way closer to my flesh
Which seems lumpen and inert compared to the fluidity of this thing.
I can make out no eyes, no mouth, no head
It is little more than a lump of snot.
Yet it seems to have direction,
Some sense of purpose.
Is this how the Gods see us?
Blind, senseless and lost
Moving relentlessly towards them
Not knowing what we want from our destination
Only, that we want
That we are driven by wants
That we are unable to articulate to the Gods or to ourselves.
Poor, mouthless creatures with purpose unspoken.
I put the stone back carefully from where it came
Feeling guilty as a God who has taken a creature from its home,
Given it a glimpse of Heaven,
Pretended that it had a reason for doing so,
Some Divine Plan.
Entranced the creature with notions of Purpose,
Chained it to Destiny.
Told it the old lie of Meaning.
When the truth is, I just picked up a stone.
andyjukes 